It was a little concerning how quickly you could tune out the sound of people dying, I thought as I listened to a Varden captain outlining the situation and orders to various sergeants. For the entire day we had been besieging Feinster’s walls and unfortunately for us, the Empire’s soldiers were doing a pretty good job of keeping us out. Their magicians had managed to stop me from blowing a hole in the walls three separate times and even counterattacked the third time viciously enough that Nasuada suggested I hold back until we could pinpoint and eliminate them.

I agreed since Samuel was likely here providing them with the raw power needed to hold me off.

This would be the fourth time we faced each other and while I considered myself in the lead so far, I think both of us were planning on only one of us walking away alive this time.

So I was being a lot more careful in this battle then I had in the past.

Instead of announcing to the entire battlefield where I was with a rain of swords and giant glowing death beams, I was acting as probably the most terrifying sniper the Empire had never seen.

With my regained ability to trace D rank Noble Phantasms I had swapped from using projected arrows to modified swords. And while D rank wasn’t too impressive, three feet of steel with properties for cutting through magic defenses made for excellent arrows for hunting down any magician or officer that dared show their face without them ever knowing where it came from. Though even with their leadership constantly getting picked off and morale in the dirt, the soldiers were still managing to hold the walls.

“They are being remarkably resilient, don’t you think?” Angela commented from my side, twirling her fancy dual-bladed staff though she really wasn’t here to fight. For the most part she was assisting with the triage stations the Healer’s Guild had scattered around the battlefield. “I wonder how much of that is because they are defending their home and how much is because of Galbatorix’s forced oaths?”

“Probably a mix of both,” I muttered as I put another projectile through the head of a soldier attempting to rally the men around him. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply couldn’t surrender or flee unless every superior officer was killed or surrendered themselves.”

“And how long are you going to skulk around in the background? Usually you like making yourself look like a lighthouse and making magicians panic over how much magic you can use.”

I chuckled at the witch. “Ah, can’t do that until we figure out where that Rider is hiding. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to attack a completely different flank than where I set up while every magician in the city tried to exhaust me before he would commit to another fight.”

Angela gave me a look and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a messenger running up to us with news from the frontline directly in front of us. The Empire was sallying out to destroy the siege equipment the Varden had set up. Things like the ladders and battering rams that would make taking the city a hundred times more bloody if they were allowed.

I wasn’t sure if it was the orders of one of the more competent Empire officers or a probe by Samuel, but either way I wasn’t going to just let them do what they wanted.

After thanking the messenger and splitting up from Angela as she disappeared somewhere into the army I found a slightly raised section of earth that let me see the group of soldiers pouring out of one of the wall’s smaller gates and pulled back the string of my bow.

Thanks to my sniping efforts, any badge or mark signaling the leader of the group had been removed but after watching for a bit it wasn’t hard to spot the one in charge. He was the one who they all followed when he pointed out a direction. So he was my first target as I lined up the modified sword to his breastplate. Half a second to aim, then release. A perfect shot.

Only for the arrow to fucking bounce off the armor somehow.

I hissed out a curse and snapped off three more arrows. One more at the leader and two at random soldiers only for them all to deflect off, even the ones that hit bare skin. Samuel must have done something to this group then. Probably something like putting so much power into the wards an arrow wasn’t enough to break through before it deflected. And to make things worse, the soldiers were just about to hit our own lines.

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I bit out another curse, dismissed my bow, and ran towards the front while Bakuya and Kanshou fell into my hands.

Yes it was going to give away my position, but you couldn’t win a battle by playing everything safe. If Samuel was going to use this as a distraction I could only hope the group of elves under Arya could hold him off long enough for me to chase him down.

With that in mind I ignited a yellow spell-circle under my foot that launched me to the front of the Empire’s charge just as they surged over the line of spearmen trying to hold them back. Black and white flashed as my twin swords lashed out and thankfully whatever magic Samuel had used to protect his soldiers from my arrows wasn’t enough to protect them from my blades.

Three soldiers were taken out of the fight before they could even realize what had happened as I cut the head off the leader I had spotted earlier, stabbed another through the heart, and lopped off the arm of one more before he could stab a Varden soldier instead.

“It’s the Sun Witch!” Several soldiers screamed and turned to face me. Something I was fine with since it gave the Varden more time to regroup. “Abandon the mission, kill her!”

Well, it was nice to be appreciated I guess.

But even with some fancy wards, they were simply too outmatched. Not to mention outnumbered now that the Varden men were forming up behind me.

Whatever soldiers that were funneled towards me by my allies’ spears were pretty quickly cut down until there was only a third of the force that sallied out of the walls. At that point I gradually began to fall back and let the soldiers deal with the heavy lifting. The Empire’s troops no longer had any chance of breaking through which meant I could try reaching out to the web of magicians we had across the battlefield for any sign of Samuel making an appearance.

But as the sun slowly lowered on the horizon and no sign of a dragon, it became clear that Samuel wasn’t going to show his face today.

And so ended the first day of the siege.

-o-

“Good you’re here.” Nasuada greeted as I pushed aside the flap to the command tent. “Were there any new issues on your front?”

My relationship with the Varden’s leadership might have been strained after Orrin’s stunt, but the middle of a battlefield where hundreds could die because of one mistake wasn’t the place to hold a grudge. So by unspoken agreement Nasuada and I decided to ignore the issue until later.

“They’ve started spreading out wards that can deflect my arrows to the more important officers that remain on the wall I was at, but not anywhere else when I tested a different section. Unless I spend the entire day running from one end of the city to the other I’m probably not going to be able to pick them off as easily.” I mentioned while I scanned the rough map detailing the siege.

Unfortunately it didn’t look much different than the one I had seen the night before, so I wasn’t the only one that had nothing to show for a day’s worth of battle. Though if I had to look on the bright side, neither did the Empire.

There were several mutters and grunts from the surrounding advisors that showed they were just as pleased with that news as I was. An enemy without leadership or morale was much easier to wear down or even convince to surrender. And there were a lot fewer people willing to step up and lead when a magic steel arrow(sword) would come out of nowhere the moment you were noticed leading.

“Impenetrable gates, magic resistant walls, and now arrow proof soldiers.” One of them grumbled. “And their Dragon Rider is still hiding in the shadows. Is it even possible to take the city?”

Jörmundur looked at the man. “Don’t be discouraged just yet. We may not have made much progress but it has only been a single day. The rams may still break through tomorrow.”

“We could also send agents to open the gates from the inside.” Arya commented. “A small team could scale the walls and reach the mechanisms, allowing the army to enter the city.”

It wasn’t exactly a novel idea, but it was a pretty good one.

The biggest issue would be slipping the infiltrators in without having them immediately swarmed by soldiers. That meant they needed to slip past any wards the enemy magicians put up, reach the mechanism, and then survive long enough to escape or link up with the army storming the gate.

Criteria that only fourteen people in the army met. Me, Arya, and Eragon’s twelve bodyguards.

“No, we can’t afford risking the elves in a mission like that.” Nasuada eventually denied after some thought. “All of you are our only counter to Samuel and his dragon until Eragon returns. It’s risky enough scattering you throughout the army to fend them off for a time. We can’t risk a trap culling those numbers. Not until we see if conventional measures will help us break through.”

“If we cannot get through the walls the Varden might not have the strength to take the city, let alone march against Galbatorix!” Arya argued.

“Do we know when Eragon is supposed to return yet?” I interrupted. It was likely there wouldn’t have been a fight. Arya was a lot more collected than I was, but I didn’t want to sit through more arguments. I had other things to do tonight.

“Within two weeks. Potentially as few as a few days.” Was the answer.

So, not great but not terrible. We could definitely wait that long, but the issue of Galbatorix organizing the soldiers from the surrounding cities and towns to send at our backs was something we couldn’t ignore. If we gave the enemy too much time, we ran the risk of being surrounded. So after a brief discussion, Arya’s idea was shelved for a day until we could see how much progress would be made now that we weren’t setting things up and the captains could devote their full attention to assaulting the walls.

“Our next issue is what to do about their Dragon Rider.” Nasuada broached the topic. “Alexandria, you mentioned special wards. Was that his doing?”

I nodded. “Both the wards and the last sally towards our line, I think.”

“I think he was focused on pinpointing where I was and testing some defenses today because I didn’t see the wards anywhere else, and I can’t think the Empire has another magician capable of warding a group of fifty men.”

Jörmundur leaned forward. “For what purpose?”

“Testing out defenses before we fight again.” I gave my best guess. “I really humiliated him last time, so I think he’s trying to stack every advantage he can against me. And since I’ve already proven I can cut through his defensive wards…”

“He’s using his men as fodder while trying to draw you out so he can see if he can block you without fighting.”

“Exactly.”

It wasn’t a terrible plan, especially because he had at least some success with any projectile I used, though it was pretty morally bankrupt.

“We’ll need to keep that in mind the longer we fight. And we will have to find a way to draw him out before he can completely defend against your magic. Lady Lightbringer, how likely is it that Samuel will find a counter to all your weapons before we breach the walls.”

I gave a brief thought to the almost literally uncountable number of weapon blueprints littering my soulscape along with the other spells at my disposal.

“I think I’ll be fine.”